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White: UFC will never buy Bellator, it has no value whatsoever

The current #1 challenger in MMA to the UFC is the Viacom-owned Bellator Fighting Championship. Earlier this year, Bellator founder and CEO Bjorn Rebney was asked by Fight Hub TV's Marcos Villegas whether he would consider selling to the UFC at some point.

"Never in a million years would I sell Bellator MMA to the UFC," said Rebney.

The odds of the UFC some day buying Bellator plummeted further still - at the UFC 168 media day on Sunday, UFC president Dana White said the company has no value.

"There's nothing there," said White to MMAFighting. "If you look at any other company we ended up buying in the past, there was value. There's no value to that company whatsoever."

"If you look at Pride, look at all the contracts we got from Pride, all the guys that came over. Look at Prideís library. Amazing library, with some of the most talented fighters of all times. When we bought WFA, we bought it because Rampage had a contract with them. When we bought Strikeforce, we bought their library. Just the fights we had with Nick Diaz alone were worth buying that company."

I really enjoy Bellator but agree that it has little value right now. While there are talented guys, they aren't big draws yet and the bar is set very high with UFC being on Fox now. It seems like the reasons to buy another org would either be for the fighters, the footage, the media contracts, sponsor contracts, or existing revenue. And Bellator doesn't seem to have a compelling case for any of those.

Though I would love to see Curran, Askren, and Chandler fight in the UFC and Jimmy Smith as a commentator there!

I really enjoy Bellator but agree that it has little value right now. While there are talented guys, they aren't big draws yet and the bar is set very high with UFC being on Fox now. It seems like the reasons to buy another org would either be for the fighters, the footage, the media contracts, sponsor contracts, or existing revenue. And Bellator doesn't seem to have a compelling case for any of those.

Though I would love to see Curran, Askren, and Chandler fight in the UFC and Jimmy Smith as a commentator there!

I agree with the fighters being there would be great. But I've never heard a WORSE announcer than Jimmy Smith.

I agree with the fighters being there would be great. But I've never heard a WORSE announcer than Jimmy Smith.

Jimmy Smith is one of my favourite announcers. Hes extremely well informed, and i really like it when the colour commentator has some fight experience. Having gone through exactly what the fighters have gone through is very valuable. Also if you dont like Jimmy you must not be a Rogan fan either. They have very similar styles, very agressive and sometimes over the top, but also very knowledgeable. Rogan tends to throw in his personal opinion alot more then Jimmy, wich some ppl like, im not one of em, but overall very similar.

The only two guys I really want to see in the UFC are Chandler and Askren. All the other champions aren't even Top 10 fighters.

Dude, Iím a wrestler. Iím the best wrestler in MMA. Wrestling IS, was and always has been the most dominate form of mix martial art on the planet. Thatís all there is to it. We all know it, some people want to fight it, some people want doubt it but wresters rule the MMA world. -
Ben Askren

The UFC would never buy PRIDE FC.
The UFC will never close PRIDE FC.
The UFC is not interested in AFFLICTION.
The UFC and AFFLICTION will work together under ZUFFA.
AFFLICTION will remain operational.
...
I'm no analyst but I think a pattern there is here somewhere.

The UFC would never buy PRIDE FC.
The UFC will never close PRIDE FC.
The UFC is not interested in AFFLICTION.
The UFC and AFFLICTION will work together under ZUFFA.
AFFLICTION will remain operational.
...
I'm no analyst but I think a pattern there is here somewhere.

Not to mention the whole, ufc will never have a womens division spiel.